recently; "To a lot of our 
people, giving to the cause of 
foreign missions is like pouring water 
into a rat hole—the hole never gets 


yr a minister to a missionary 


filled up." So you have heard! 

Now a number of 
persons havebeen 
insidethe foreign 
missions "hole,"and 
the writer, as one of 


them, can con- fidently state 
that while it is capacious, it is not 
bottomless. Even a casual look will 
show that although not enough has 
been poured in thus far to make the 
hole overflow, yet what has been 
supposedly lost is there, and in 
addition a good deal that the com- 
plainants did not pour in. 

In one corner of the "hole" lies 
Singapore, at the center of the 
Malaysia mission field. There are 


twenty-seven missionaries in that 
city, counting wives and missionary 
teachers in the schools. Of this 
number, two are supported by the 
Board of Foreign Missions, and five 
by the Woman's Foreign Mission- 
ary Society. The other 


twenty are support- 


ed on the field. 

The An- glo-Chi- 
neseSchool employs 
in its day and boarding de- 


partments eleven of the entire num- 
ber, besides thirty-five local teachers. 
Not one cent of the funds of either 
Board goes to their support. But 
that is not all! Some of these mis- 
sionary teachers, in addition to do- 
ing a full day’s work in their class 
rooms, are in charge of native 
churches, or do some other form 
of voluntary work, which, if it were 
not for them, could only be main- 


tained by pouring more funds into 
the "hole." Nor is that all! Two 
native young men -—one an Indian, 
the other a Chinaman — who teach 
with high acceptability in this same 
school, serve as pastors, without 


The Meth- 


odist -Pub- lishing 
House supports 
four white workers 
and a staff of about 


seventy Asia- tics without 
aid from home. Two of our eight 
churches are self-supporting, and 
the others partly so. 

Pass on to Penang. The sup- 
erintendent of the district is a man 
who preaches in English, Malay, 
Tamil, and Chinese. His Sunday 
work is as heavy as that of the 
average preacher in America, and 
in addition is principal of a school 
of nearly a thousand boys, not 


merely holding down an office chair, 
but teaching his classes as well. 
None of the money poured into the 
"hole" supports him. But the half 
has not been told. This same mis- 
sionary'’s wife cap_work in English, 


Malay, Telegu, 
Tamil, an two dia- 
lects of Chinese. 
She super- vises and 
accompa- nies her 
Biblewoman. She has 


founded, procured land and build- 
ing for, and maintained for some 


years, a Rescue Home for Fallen 
Women, unaided by "hole" funds. 
Most of us like to have certain def- 
inite hours in each twenty-four, 
when we can count on entire relax- 
ation from our work, devoting our- 
selves to personal affairs or recrea- 
tion. But this good sister, with the 
appetite for activity of half a dozen 


hearty men, and the devotion of an 
apostle, has gathered together in a 
building adjacent to her own house, 
a score or more of needy native 
girls, whom she clothes, feeds, and 
educates while teaching them home- 
ly arts. And, that indo- 


lence an even lei- 
sure may have 
final notice to keep 
off the premises, 
she superin- tends in a 


big house next door, a boarding 
school for Chinese boys who pay 
their own way. All the money 
that finds its way from America into 
her manifold activities is a few 
dollars each for some of the girls 
she is supporting. 

Now for a quick trip to Borneo. 
Seven churches and eight schools 
are supported, not by the inrush of 
funds through the capacious mouth 


of the "hole," but by a rice mill, 
donated by a good friend in Amer- 
ica, and kept self-sustainng and 
ever-giving by its own energy in 
devouring hundreds of bags of rice 
raised by non-gambling, non-opium- 


using Chi- nese farm- 
ers. Our investi- 
gation of the cor- 
ners of this J particu- 
lar "hole" ends in 
Java—not be- cause thelast 


word has been said, but because "a 
word to the wise is sufficient." In or 
near Java,some half dozen well-train- 
ed, efficient, devoted American men 
are teaching the English language 
and the love of God to the Chinese 
and other folk. At whose expense? 
Wholly at the expense of the en- 
evangelized, the not-yet-Christian- 
ized Chinese business man, to whose 
heart, if there has not yet penetrated 


the love of God, at least to his head 
has come the conviction that the 
American missionary is a safe man 
to whom to entrust both the mind 


and the morals of his sons. 
We admit there is a big "hole." 


God has set before us 
an open door 
which no man can 
shut. We admit 
that a loto consecrat- 


ed time and money have 
been poured in. But in Malaysia 
probably not more than one-fourth 
of the inpouring has been done by 
the home church, and not a particle 
of the apparently lost giving has 
been wasted. 


W. T. CHERRY, 


Singapore. 


Board of Foreign Missions of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church 
150 Fifth Avenue, New York 


25 cents per hundred 


vas 


ements 


i 


The: returns rors Malaysia 
e for 1912 indicate that 


the 6 hole” has the following f 


4 
ay oreign Mason adie a 5 4 ‘ 


a _ Native Preachers and i - i ” Ts 
 Menbes and Probationers - - 3482 

| Educational Institutions: - . | le mut Ss 
Number of Pupils - ube a 6616 

4 Churches and ah i mt _ mle (28 
Value. of all Property - $5 i} 4, 851 
Am t SOS ERE on e ld Sh. 3, 425 ‘ 


